Poor Brian has been suffering with his eye issue all weekend. It was bothering him so much, he had to keep taking Tylenol, which he hated to do as he feels he is already taking way too many medications. It was the only thing that gave him relief though as it was really getting him down and at times was making him feel nauseated. So we saw the oncologist today and the good news is that his white count (neutrophils) are good. They are at a level that they are happy with. Dr. McCarron was concerned with the eye though and she was not sure if it was shingles or not as he really didn't have other symptoms of shingles like a rash/bumps or tenderness to touch. I told her that I had already taken the step of phoning our ophthalmologist that morning and they had arranged an appointment at 5 after he had finished his day. Dr. McCarron said that she did not want to start chemo again until we made sure there was not an infection going on in the eye and she asked us to have Dr. Johnson page her once he had seen us. Her thoughts were that if we could get this cleared up by the end of the week, she would then like to restart chemo as of Monday. She also explained that Brian's white cells were more than likely going to deplete again after chemo, so she gave us a prescription for Neupogen and then casually asked if I was okay giving him the injection in the belly. I said no way I was not comfortable doing that so she laughed and said she will arrange CCAC to do the injection and they could potentially show me how to do it. We shall see, I will make that decision at a later date! So the plan is that the day after chemo, he will get the Neupogen injection and then again four days after that. Hopefully that will keep Brian in good stead with his neutrophils. The neuopogen stimulates the bone marrow to produce the neutrophils. In the meantime, Brian will not venture to any public places and we will just stay around the house to keep him as free of viruses as we can. We went to the hospital pharmacy where we have to get all of Brian's drugs and got the 8 bottles of neupogen at the cost of $1500!! Thankfully though our insurance covers the cost of that although funny enough since CCAC is doing the injection, the clerk said that CCAC covers that cost; so whatever, that is okay with us! Thank goodness we live in Canada is all I can say and have such great medical coverage. I can't even imagine what it would be like for people that live in the States or any other country for that matter who do not have medical insurance. We are truly fortunate to live in this country of ours.
So we visit the ophthalmologist and he said he could not see anything wrong with the eye per se, just a bit of inflammation at the top of the globe which may have been irritating his eye and hence the swelling and redness on the outside. He said it could be shingles but he could not be 100% on that since, again, there were no other symptoms of shingles but his thought was that there may be something going on in the sinuses above the eyes and he suggested that a head CT scan would be in order just to make sure there was nothing brewing in this sinuses. So he called our oncologist and she is going to arrange the head CT scan, and call us tomorrow with the time and date. I think we have pretty well filled up our week with doctor appointments, back to see Dr. Johnson on Wednesday for a double check on the eye, go to see the doctor in Hamilton for stem cell on Thursday, back to see Dr. McCarron on Friday for further blood work and assessment and somewhere during this week, getting in a head CT scan. Lots of driving back and forth for us this week!
I will wait to do any updates until Friday and hopefully by then we will know where we stand with respect to chemo starting again and we will have more information on whether stem cell may be a go for the future. In the meantime, I hope that Brian gets some relief from his eye so he can enjoy a few days of being chemo-free and having a few days of feeling well.
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